Mark Small: Compassion Grants

Compassion grants are grants given from the SC Rural Communities Compassion Program. It’s a program that provides funding to rural faith and community-based organizations to try and improve their capacity or build their capacity to provide services to needy children and families.

One of the problems facing SC is that there are a lot of residents in rural parts of the state; and a lot of the rural parts of the state are very poor. A lot of the institutions attempting to serve this poor population are themselves in need of capacity building; themselves in need of ways to make them stronger, either in adopting better practices to serve these families or building their own organizational structure so they can be sustained – sustain their program over time.

The program limits its eligibility to rural faith and community-based organizations that address some priority areas and these include children at risk, hunger, homelessness, people transitioning from welfare to work, prisoners re-entering the community and children of prisoners as well as those programs that attempt to strengthen and enhance marriages.

This program has been entirely funded by grants obtained by the Institute on Family & Neighborhood Life from the federal government and from foundations who have seen our vision in trying to reach this needy population.

If you want to learn more about the Compassion Project we have more information on our website: www.clemson.edu/ifnl.